


Angels

by GeorgeCantWrite



Series: Pietro and Bucky shorts [4]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Clint Barton Feels, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Hurt Bucky Barnes, M/M, Pietro Maximoff Feels, Sad, Sad Ending, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-25 14:10:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14978828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeorgeCantWrite/pseuds/GeorgeCantWrite
Summary: "Say hello to the angels for me,"





	Angels

**Author's Note:**

> From a sad tumblr prompt I saw and decided it could apply to Bucky.

"Say hello to the angels for me," Bucky said quietly, unable to keep his breathing even. This couldn't be right, how could it be right? It had to be a sick illusion, a hallucination, something. For it couldn't be a reality, not for Bucky.

And certainly not for Pietro.

But everything felt too real. He couldn't help but feel hyperaware of Steve’s iron grip on his real shoulder, or how his breathing ripped up his lungs, tearing them apart. He could hear everything, his breathing, the way Wanda was sobbing just feet away from him.

He couldn’t cry, not just yet.

Wanda continued to cry, her shoulders shaking with each sob, but Bucky couldn’t move. He felt frozen to the spot, feeling his stomach roil as his eyes stared ahead of him. He couldn’t believe it.

“Bucky,” Steve’s voice said gently in his ear, but he sounded so distant and so far away, like Bucky was drowning at sea whilst Steve stayed on the docks. He felt like he was going into shock as he continued to stare, but it was so hard to turn his eyes away, because if he did, then he would believe it to not have happened and he needed to understand that it was real.

_Gonegonegonegonegonegonegone._

No. This couldn’t be right.

Bucky felt himself shaking, trying to keep everything hidden away because the only person who could really get him to talk and not feel stupid about it was so still and so pale that it was worrying. His pale face looked even worse from the shock of white hair and he looked _deaddeaddead_.

But Steve was still trying to talk to him, to get him to listen, but he was holding onto Pietro’s hand so tightly that he would’ve told Bucky that it hurt, but he couldn’t because his eyes were shut, and his chest was still and there wasn’t a quirk coming from his smirking mouth.

And Bucky knew that it was his fault. It was all his fault – fuck, of course it was, it always was. Why wouldn’t it be?

Pietro had had several scrapes with death, one of the worst being when he nearly got himself killed saving Clint and that boy, but now this was real and so much worse because he really was gone.

Bucky felt like he was turning to stone, and he didn’t care because Pietro was so long gone.

“Come back with me,” Steve tried again. Bucky couldn’t react. He couldn’t talk, like his body was frozen in time and it made something rear in his chest when it reminded him of Hydra, but everything was so much worse because where was Pietro to bring him back from the brink? To tell him some stupid shitty joke and run around and make Bucky’s hair a whirlwind of a bird’s nest? His body was laid out in front of Bucky, draped in a white sheet up to his chest, but Pietro wasn’t actually there any more.

He wanted Pietro back.

Bucky tried to get the words out, to tell Pietro to come back to him, like he always did, but something in the back of Bucky’s mind told him that it was too late for that. He’d seen Pietro’s body fall in a heap, the blood coming from his head and chest. He could remember how the three kids had screamed in horror when Pietro collapsed. Bucky had been there instantly, telling them to go to safety, back with Steve and Thor whilst Bucky tried to check for a pulse, for a sign that Pietro was breathing.

He couldn’t find any.

Pietro’s eyes had been half open, gazing up at the sky without seeing, and the stars had reflected on them, the dark sky making Pietro look paler than usual, his wounds looking worse. But the damage had been done and Bucky had no way to fix it.

Bucky’s eyes remained on Pietro’s pale face, any sound around him falling on deaf ears as he tried not to cry, but he could feel the faint sting in his eyes and maybe could even feel the hotness and wetness on his cheeks, but all that he could see was Pietro and how he wasn’t looking back with that cheeky glint in his eye, or that dopey look he’d give Bucky whenever he’d get injured on a mission and Bucky would chastise him for being so stupid as to get himself hurt, knowing that Bucky would kiss him on his forehead, call him _darling_ in that way that only Bucky could and sometimes _dollface_ when he had been particularly stupid and stay with him until he was better.

Maybe it was the useless hope that maybe if he stayed, that Pietro would get better. Bucky had no concept of time, had no idea how long he had stayed beside Pietro, clutching his hand tightly, ignoring Steve who was sat beside him, trying to get him to eat and stay hydrated, though it didn’t really work all that well.

Bucky had stayed awake for several days before he had passed out from exhaustion, and he next awoke to the bed that he and Pietro had once occupied. He had been confused for a moment, wondering where the hell Pietro could’ve gone because that little shit always left a sticky note stuck to his forehead, telling him just where he had gone, leaving a steaming cup of coffee on the bedside table for when Bucky woke, because Pietro knew. He knew that Bucky fuckin’ loved a good coffee in the mornings and Pietro knew where the best coffee shops were, even if Stark had a coffee maker (or fifty) around the tower.

But then he remembered, much to his dismay, that Pietro was gone.

He didn’t have the energy to get up, so rolled over to Pietro’s side of the bed, trying to remember what his boyfriend would smell like. He didn’t want to forget what his scent was. It was one of the best things that he ever come across; more than once he would wake in the middle of the night to his face in Pietro’s neck or in his hair (though he often woke choked on the white hair and it managed to also tickle his nose until he sneezed), and Pietro would be clinging onto him like a monkey, radiating heat that even Bucky couldn’t muster.

It had taken him by surprise when Clint had come into his room, sitting on Bucky’s side of the bed, holding out a cup of coffee, the smell all too like the kind that Pietro always got him. Bucky hated himself when he cried over a goddamn _cup of coffee_. Clint hadn’t judged him, just helped Bucky cry it all out, the coffee on the bedside table out of harms way as the two clung onto each other.

Days went past and so did Pietro’s funeral.

It had been a quiet little ceremony that Bucky had attended. He had stayed away, in the back, the shadows. If he got into the light, then people would see just how fucked up he was after losing that speedy little shit, and he wasn’t going to let them know just what they had been.

Pietro had been understanding when Bucky had asked that their relationship wasn’t to be shown to the public. He’d been recovering from his trauma, as was Pietro, but after remembering just how shitty people had been in the forties, he hadn’t been all that eager to let people know in this new century. Not that Pietro minded, of course. He had just let the two of them keep it to themselves and the team.

Of course, it didn’t stop Pietro from running around, whooping excitedly, because he was still immature that way.

Fuck, Bucky wished that immature little shit was still there with him.

After the funeral, Bucky had returned to his room, not quite sure what to do. Wanda had been sad, though hadn’t shed any tears. He supposed that she hadn’t quite gotten over the shock of losing her brother, and he supposed he hadn’t gotten quite over the shock of losing his partner.

Bucky sat back down on the bed, stripping out of his suit, grabbing some sweatpants to wear. He opened the drawer of the bedside table and clutched a small little object between the metal fingers of his hand. It was a tiny little thing that he bought. Simple and silver. It wasn’t ever going to get a use, but he couldn’t quite find it in himself to take it back to the jewellers. So he put it around a silver chain and slung said chain around his neck, the ring bouncing off the skin on his chest lightly, slanting to the left a little.

He gave up and let all the tears fall. He had grown tired from trying to keep everything inside of himself, so let it out when no-one could see or hear him. “Hope you said hello to the angels for me, asshat,” he said thickly, eyes staring upwards, trying to see through the bleariness that was caused from his tears.

“Better have,” he added, trying to clear his throat, but it felt like there was something stuck there, and he supposed that he’d never really get it out. “Fuckin’ asshole.”

His right hand came to encage the ring, as if holding it would bring that little bastard back, even though he knew that was a waste of energy. But still. Pietro could’ve been his goddamn husband and then maybe they could’ve been OK to tell the public, or just keep it to those who they cared about (even though when Tony and Steve finally got married, Tony made it as glamorous as possible) (but then again, with every person who attended their wedding, Tony donated ten thousand dollars to different charities).

He wished he and Pietro had gotten married. He couldn’t quite think that this was for the better. Not when so many people were hurt from losing that beautiful bastard. Bucky wanted to console Wanda, but the thought of going near her sent him over the edge again because she was so much like her brother as much as she was different to him. They were two halves of a whole, in a similar and different manner as what whole Bucky and Pietro had been.

“Hey,”

Bucky tried to tense up, but all his energy had gone into sobbing like the sad man he was. He barely had the energy to turn his gaze to the doorway where Clint was standing. Fuck, the man looked as rough as Bucky felt. He nodded, and Clint entered, shutting the door behind him, holding a bottle in his hand that Bucky knew wasn’t alcopops or whatever stupid shit that Parker boy drunk whenever he’s around Stark.

Silently, Clint offered Bucky the bottle and he took it, nearly downing it in one large gulp. He felt the sting of it as much as when he felt the sting in his eyes. He handed it back, feeling that maybe he should just sleep instead of drink, but Pietro wasn’t there any more to make sure that Bucky didn’t do anything stupid. Besides, it took a lot of alcohol to get Bucky drunk (though not near enough as Pietro, and that made things bad because now that Clint was offering the drink back, all he could think about was Pietro).

“He’s gone,” Bucky said, voice croaky and rough. He’d barely spoken since Pietro had died and it felt odd that he had working vocal chords and was odder to hear because it didn’t really sound like him.

Clint made a noise in his throat like he was agreeing. He leant back against the headboard, frowning at space, like that would solve their problems. “Y’know, that little fucker tried to dye my hair,” he said, and Bucky felt a weak laugh try to escape him. It partly did. “Yeah, he did. Several times. In my shampoo, in my sleep, when I was getting coffee in the mornings. Never quite worked, but I wish it did,” he said, then shifted his weight slightly, bumping shoulders with Bucky accidentally.

“Me too,” Bucky said quietly. Some of those occasions, Pietro had tried to rope Bucky into helping to dye Clint’s hair, and he had succeeded at least three times. Though dyeing the man’s hair hadn’t really gone to plan, they had had fun.

“Jerk,” was all Clint replied with before he changed the subject. “You’re gonna be OK.”

Bucky didn’t believe it.

He reckoned that Clint didn’t either.

The two let the silence consume them, and Clint put the empty bottle on the drawer, then nudged Bucky’s right hand, which he moved away so that the ring was revealed. Clint smiled that sad smile of his that Bucky could understand just fuckin’ fine before he moved back to give Bucky a little bit of space. Just staying beside Bucky was something Clint did because he was a good bro like that.

 

* * *

 

 

One month had passed from the funeral, and Bucky hadn’t gone on any missions. He stayed tucked away in the tower, and Stark seemed to understand him in some weird way because he always left something in the rooms Bucky tended to hide away in that was convenient to whatever Bucky was feeling.

Bucky supposed that Stark feared he would turn the same as Bucky if Steve died, so tried to be there for Bucky in case he ever needed Bucky to be there for him.

One of the rooms he sulked in was kinda small but was comfortable and he’d stay in there for hours at a time. Only this time, Clint was already in there, curled up, asleep in the spot that Bucky usually held. This was not right. He nearly turned away and left, but Clint’s Clint and he has super senses that make up for the lack of his hearing one and he’s already awake, trying to get his aids in without dropping them or accidentally swallowing them.

Bucky stops him cos the man is still tired and now that he’s closer – cos he wanted to so that the guy could see him sign to him – he can see the dark circles under Clint’s eyes that looked like they weren’t ever going to fade. He signed for Clint to budge over and when he does, warily, Bucky sits down beside him, and the two wrap a blanket around themselves and doze off together.

Bucky is immensely thankful that Clint didn’t mention how he was wearing a hoodie that was just that little bit too small for his large form, and instead went back to sleep, being a solid presence that could help keep Bucky grounded as he let his thoughts consume him.

Two months passed, and it felt like things were getting rough for Bucky. He still refused to go on missions and had begun to have frequent arguments with Steve. And yeah, it tore him apart that he was getting pissed off at his best friend, but he was angry. He was always angry just _angerangerangeranger_.

He felt like he was going insane.

He was in one of the many training areas within the tower and was shooting a target with his second favourite rifle. He had been half tempted with not putting the earmuffs on, but then Pietro’s voice had entered his mind, telling him not to be stupid, or else he’d be like Old Man Clint – even though both of them new that Clint wasn’t that old, especially in consideration to Bucky, Steve and the Asgardian on the team. So he’d settled for putting earplugs in and had started shooting.

That had been several hours ago. But he couldn’t find it in himself to stop. He had to try and distract himself from everything he was and wasn’t feeling and everything he was and wasn’t thinking.

So when he went to reload the rifle, he heard the muffled yells of Clint Barton. He turned to look at him, pulling out an earplug to give the guy what was supposed to be a pissed off look, but all things considered, he highly doubted the glare had any of its usual Winter Soldier flare.

“Here,” Clint said, holding out a bow. It was purple and silver and was one of Clint’s old bows that Stark had made before he had immediately made an upgrade. “If you wanna distract yourself, then do something you’ve never done.”

Bucky took the bow and the quiver that Clint quickly supplied him with. Clint offered him a smile. “When my brother Barney fucked me over again and I was down, I decided to learn British Sign Language. Not something I’d ever done before, so it was a good distraction. S’pose it’s also useful too,”

Bucky had no fuckin’ clue as to why Clint was telling him this.

“Learning the alphabet in BSL was a lot easier than I thought – it was easier than ASL’s alphabet,”

“Cos BSL’s on both hands and the vowels are easy as fuck,” Bucky replied, and Clint nodded and laughed, and Bucky felt stupid for how much he clung to the sound. God, fuck, no-one laughed any more.

Clint helped Bucky get the basics of how to shoot an arrow from a bow, looking slightly offended that Hydra hadn’t taught him as the Winter Soldier how to shoot one. “I guess it’s for the best, right?” Clint had asked when Bucky’s arrow hid the outer ring of the target. “Can’t have some other assassin trying to take my spot as the best marksman, right?”

Three months in, he was still angry, but maybe not as much as he used to be.

He and Steve still argued, but it was more the quiet types that were usually forgiven and forgotten within the day. But still. He was still hurting, and Steve had no fuckin’ clue as to how much he was hurting.

What Bucky hadn’t expected was that Clint often spent a good amount of his time with him. He had been the one to coax Bucky into going to Pietro’s grave because he knew the man needed to try and get some sort of closure, even though it would never truly feel right because Pietro wasn’t there any more. But it was something. And Bucky was grateful, because Steve might be his friend, but Clint understood Bucky in a different way to what Steve or Pietro ever could.

He supposed that it was because they were mind controlled bros.

The fourth month passed a little easier than the third, and the fifth a little harder than the fourth. The next few months were still hard to get through and Pietro’s scent on his clothes and bedding had long since vanished, much to Bucky’s distress.

He had lost his edge a little and when he came down from whatever he had gone up on, he found the two blonds he cared about so much were sat with him, trying to ground him. Only Clint had stayed the night with Bucky, teaching him all the sign language he knew, cos Clint knew that after shit like that, Bucky needed something to do to keep him distracted.

After a year of not having Pietro, something either broke or clicked inside Bucky. He wasn’t sure what it was, and was sure he never would, because he never really understood what went on inside his head and with his heart. But he did start going on missions again. He knew that that was what he was supposed to do, because it was what he and Pietro had done, and he’d been out of action too long and he needed something to make him feel again. He needed to know that he was still alive, that he wasn’t suffocating in his misery.

They tried easy missions at first, the easy pickings to get Bucky back into the flow of things. For the most part, he was teamed up with either Clint or Steve. Either man that he was teamed up with, he had an intense connection with, allowing them to work fluently, taking out targets and saving people with so much ease he would’ve found it funny, but his sense of amusement had long since gone.

As the months continued on, Bucky went on steadily harder missions, on the ones that would take longer – the ones that took weeks at a time to complete – to the ones that were horrible as fuck, but still needed to be done, because there was always some horrible bastard on the planet that needed to be sorted out.

Each time, Clint always had his back.

Bucky and Pietro had been an unstoppable team, with his training as an assassin and the speed Pietro brought, they often cleared out more bad guys than anyone else on the team. They were truly a force to be reckoned with, and with a hint of nostalgia and maybe some pain, Bucky supposed that’s how things had started between them. It was such a shame that it had to end the same way it had begun.

But he couldn’t think of things like that. He was trying to get over the little hurdles that came without Pietro by his side, because that was how he was going to have to live through his life, however long the rest of it may be.

“What’s on your mind today, Fucky?” Clint asked in lieu of greetings, plonking himself beside Bucky.

“It’s been a year and a half,” he replied, eyes locked on the book in his hands, which trembled as he spoke. He could do this. He could.

“Yeah,” said Clint. Bucky saw the way the corner of his mouth pulled in a little sympathetic smile that barely lasted a second. “Get through today,”

The two spent the day on the sofa, watching sad films because they could.

When the two-year mark hit, Bucky felt that it was time to let go. Or at least to begin to. He would stop pining over the man he had cared so deeply for, had loved with all his heart, so that he could try and move on. He had gotten used to waking up to an empty bed, but to be greeted in the mornings by a tired Clint Barton who would hold out a cup of coffee whilst drinking out of the pot itself.

He had grown accustomed to training with Clint, working on missions with Clint. No, he hadn’t replaced Pietro, never. There was always a large part of himself that would be missing because of Pietro. But he knew that he could grow and be happy, even if the one thing that truly made him happy had been gone for two years.

It took him another year to realise certain things.

Bucky Barnes knew that people often underestimated Clint Barton because of how human he was – because he didn’t have any superpowers, how he could be broken easily, and how he was deaf. But he was strong in his own ways, and perhaps had his own superpowers that went undetected. For once – he managed to put up with Bucky on a daily basis, even when he was at his lowest points; Clint was nothing short of a godsend when Bucky would be trapped in the darkest parts of his mind, and then Clint would be there, right beside him, easing him back from that spot, back to the present where he was, just so that when he was, he could show Bucky a recent picture of his dog, Lucky.

Yeah, Clint Barton had superpowers.

Bucky tried to become more aware of himself. He soon noticed how he and Steve would always brush shoulders, how he and Sam would poke and prod at each other and tease and mock the hell out of each other as soon as Steve’s back was turned. He noticed how he and Natasha would often have the briefest of touches, the remains of something that had been and could’ve been. How Stark always tended to be on Bucky’s left, just so that he could examine his arm and tell him just how awful he was because he wouldn’t let Stark touch it.

He hadn’t let anyone touch it after Pietro had died. Going to Stark for help with his arm was always a struggle for Bucky, so Pietro had often accompanied him, held his right hand when Stark would start prodding literally inside his arm and kept him grounded by talking to him under his breath in Sokovian, always something about Stark or the team, often cracking a joke that Bucky would have to force himself to keep a straight face at because Pietro’s jokes were the best.

Clint’s jokes were the best too, Bucky realised.

It took him a while, but Bucky soon begun to notice things between himself and Clint that he hadn’t considered before. He noticed how they would always be touching whenever they were in the same room; how they had this _look_ and then they would know what the other was thinking. He noticed how his bedroom was getting a purple flare to it, to mix in with the dark colours and the silvers and blues there.

And after a few more months, he begun to take notice of the lingering touches they had on each other, how Bucky found himself looking at Clint when Clint wasn’t looking, was distracted or in his own world or was sat with Bucky in peace and he would always find that he could see this coffee-crazed man for who he really was.

It made Bucky’s heart shatter.

 

* * *

 

 

Three years and four months later, Bucky decided that he should probably take action, because Clint – as much as good eyesight as he had – was blind to this situation, and Bucky had to fuckin’ resolve it because that’s what Bucky did.

The two were camped out in Clint’s bedroom, watching some old John Wayne film because Clint thought that watching black and white films was fuckin’ hilarious for his company, when Bucky had paused the TV to try and address this situation.

Because it was a bit of a situation, and he needed to get a few things off his chest, and he felt that Clint needed to know. He should know.

“Whassup?” Clint asked, and Bucky noted the tired ring to his voice, which probably wouldn’t make things any easier, but Bucky decided to go with the part of him that was yelling ‘fuck it!’ and then leaned over and kissed Clint.

The action lasted all of a second, a simple press of their mouths before Bucky pulled away and pressed his forehead against Clint’s, so _very_ aware of the tremors going through his body because this was a foreign, but familiar territory that he didn’t know how to tread. He let out a breath that was shakier than he had intended, but he supposed that things were done now, that he had done his little piece so that Clint could see this shit because how the fuck couldn’t he have seen this?

“Y’know, Steve was the first one to point it out,” said Clint. His voice was a little rough, but it was quiet and washed over Bucky and helped to steady his breathing. “I didn’t really believe it, and s’pose I didn’t want to because of what happened, but yeah.”

Bucky knew what Clint was getting at, even if Clint didn’t.

He breathed in again, trying to control himself because he wanted to do this, but it felt like the past had a firm hold on him. “I wanna do this. Do you want to?” he asked, because when Bucky committed to something, he committed whole-heartedly.

“Yeah.” And Clint did too.

Bucky could remember once, how Natasha had said that Clint had a tendency to fall hard and fast for someone, and it made his heart do a funny little fall when he wondered how long Clint could have possibly felt like this towards him.

“We good?” Clint asked, bringing Bucky back to the present with him. Bucky nodded and let Clint kiss him, ignoring the TV long enough for it to go into standby mode.

 

* * *

 

 

Clint was an asshole.

Not in the mean way, Bucky knew, but in that Clint-Barton-is-an-asshole kind of way. Where he’s not purposely an asshole, and he’s really mean, he’s just … he’s just.

They spent several hours together in and around the tower, and just as much time together when they went on missions. They were a fantastic duo, working together seamlessly as they would take down target after target and fought together for tooth and nail.

But it still reminded Bucky of Pietro.

It was weird how that worked out. He and Pietro had been something entirely different to what he and Clint were now, and he knew that was good. He wasn’t replacing Pietro, nor was he forgetting he’d existed. But he _had_ moved on, let his heart try again for something that could be good and full of promise.

He often forgot that Clint was just a human running around with enhanced people and a god.

Bucky was aware that Clint got hurt a lot more often than anyone else on the team – he knew that from the moment he had been introduced to Clint (which had been Clint in crutches with multiple strips on his face and a damn blackeye). But it became increasingly worrying for Bucky the more he grew attached to the man. And when they confirmed to each other that they could be happy together, it meant that Bucky’s worry for the man grew tenfold.

There was always something in the back of Bucky’s brain telling him to stay alert, to keep Clint safe, and it sounded similar to that of the Winter Soldier. He knew that he was worried more so than when he was with Pietro, and he knew why, but he couldn’t help it. After losing Pietro that way, he didn’t want to risk losing Clint in a similar fashion.

It took several months after the two became intimate for them to share a bed nightly. Bucky’s dreams were often plagued with his past as the Soldier and of Pietro’s dead body. He hadn’t wanted to let anyone see him wake from those, especially Clint because he awoke with Pietro’s name on his lips and a disappointment that he wasn’t there beside him. He hated when he awoke like that, in the middle of the night with a past lover’s name ready to be spoken; he hated how he still longed for him, even though he knew that there was no way for him to find him again.

But he was getting better.

“Buck?” Clint asked tiredly. The lights in their room were dim and he could see the silhouette of Clint beside him. He reached out and pulled the man closer, feeling his solid presence, the way his breath ghosted over his chest. This was his reality now.

And yet he knew he should’ve seen it coming.

The Avengers alarm sounded just as Bucky had gotten to sleep and he woke with a start, grasping at the body beside him. And he went to speak and realised he was going to say another’s name before he corrected himself.

“Let’s go,” Clint said, sounding half-awake but alert nonetheless. The two prepared themselves before they had to leave on the jet, accompanied by Stark, Steve and Natasha.

Steve spoke about the mission, what they were to do, what was happening and what was the most important thing out of everything. But something in Bucky’s stomach felt strange. It turned uncomfortably beneath his heart, making that beat irregularly. He felt a sense of déjà vu and he knew exactly why. Silently, he turned his body closer to Clint and gripped the man’s hand tightly in his. Clint gave him a smile, that goddamn smile that made Bucky feel like he was floating, and then turned his attention to Steve. He still kept his hand in Bucky’s, squeezing it tightly.

Before Bucky knew it, they were out in the wild, fighting tooth and nail, just like he was supposed to do. Half of his attention was on Clint, making sure that he was always in his line of sight, that he was safe. The other half was making sure that he wasn’t going to get killed whilst getting rid of as many Hydra agents as he could.

And then, that’s when it happened.

He had taken his eyes off Clint for _one goddamn second_ and of course, that had been enough to go and fuck everything up.

It felt all too fast for it to be real. He watched, helpless, as the gun was raised, aimed toward Clint and the bullet went straight through his chest. The sound that came from Bucky sounded inhuman, animalistic, and he would’ve noticed that everyone had paused, chills having gone down their spines at the sound.

Bucky raced towards Clint, skidding on his shins to grab at his chest, only for his metal hand to come up a shiny red. “No,” he muttered frantically, unaware of what was going on around him as he pressed his human hands to Clint’s neck, searching for a pulse.

Clint’s eyes were half open just like his, oh no.

 _Nononononononono_.

He looked around to find Stark standing over him, shooting at every evil bastard with the repulsors, not stopping until they were all down. “Barnes,” he said, but it fell on deaf ears because Bucky was still trying to get Clint to get up, because he was being stupid, and he should know that Bucky hated it when something like this happens.

“Barnes,” he repeated, grabbing his shoulder, the armour having retracted. “Barnes, he’s –”

Bucky pushed him away. “No,”

This couldn’t be right. This wasn’t right because it had to be a fucking dream – a hyperreal dream that was making him panic. He was going to wake up to Clint’s worried gaze and be able to hug him and maybe tell him that he loved him, because he hadn’t had the courage to tell him just yet, because he’d had to get over losing Pietro, but he knew he loved him.

He loved Clint in the way he’d loved Pietro. And now it seemed that he wasn’t allowed to tell him he loved him. He watched as Natasha shed a tear, touching Clint’s face before she ordered for a stretcher so that he could be taken back to the jet. In the distance, he thought he could hear Steve talking, but it was too faint to him. His ears were ringing, and he was staring at the patch of blood that was steadily drying from the blazing sun as they’d been fighting through the rest of the night into midday.

“C’mon, Buck,” Steve said, words suddenly clear as if Bucky had broken the surface of the water he’d been drowning in.

Bucky allowed Steve to drag him back to the jet, and he sat down beside Clint’s body, taking hold of his hand like he had done to Pietro long ago. He could feel the tears on his face, clearing tracks through the grime on his face. He probably stunk and looked like he needed a shower, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

He couldn’t stop staring at Clint’s face. He looked at ease, like the weight of the world had finally been taken from him; he looked younger than what he usually did, and Bucky supposed that being awake and fighting the way he had made him appear older than what he truly was.

Sighing defeatedly, Bucky pulled Clint’s hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to it, feeling the warmth leaving his body. “Say hello to Pietro for me.”


End file.
